Long-hitting Lincicome leads Wegmans LPGA

Brittany Lincicome during the third round of the Wegmans LPGA Championship at Monroe Golf Club in Pittsford, N.Y.
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Associated Press
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By Beth Ann Nichols

Saturday, August 16, 2014

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – Brittany Lincicome and Dewald Gouws are golf’s ultimate power couple. Lincicome, known on tour as "BAM BAM," is one of the biggest hitters on the LPGA, but she’d have to catch the cart path to come close to her boyfriend’s longest drive. Gouws’ best smash in competition: 464 yards.

“Did he tell you every now and again he misses it and I outdrive him?” asked Lincicome, grinning. “I take a picture.”

For that to happen Lincicome, leader of the Wegmans LPGA Championship after three rounds, has to crush a drive and Gouws, a long drive pro by trade, basically has to whiff it.

But still.

Gouws, a beefy South African, kindly protested against her posting such photographic evidence to Twitter.

“Babe, this sport I’m in is pretty rugged and you’re doing this!” said Gouws, runner-up at the 2008 Remax World Long Drive Championship.

Let the record show that Gouws has yet to beat her at any of their friendly match-play competitions.

Monroe Golf Club was made for a player like Lincicome, who can routinely bust drives 280 yards. She’s 11 under for the tournament on the par 5s this week and leading Suzann Pettersen and Inbee Park by one stroke.

“This course definitely favors the bombers,” said Pettersen, who gained a club with her irons and at least 10 yards off the tee despite doing nothing but cardio at the gym since her back injury.

For Lincicome, winning a tournament for the first time since 2011 might come down to how well she calms the nerves.

“I think because I haven't been in this position in a while,” said Lincicome, “it just kind of all caught up with me.”

When asked how many times she felt like nerves got the better of her on the greens Saturday, Lincicome said “all of them on the front nine.”

“They were all not hit in the middle of the club face,” she said. “Distance control was not very good. I left most things short.”

Lincicome relied on bananas, some mid-round medicine and Bible verses to get her through the round. On Sunday, she plans to avoid looking at any leaderboards and stick with the game plan that’s carried her to the top thus far. Nancy Lopez told her two years ago in Phoenix that she needed to know her position down the stretch, but she can’t quite get herself to sneak a peek.

Lincicome might not know what’s going on tomorrow, but rest assured that Gouws will be following closely. The two fittingly met at the 2012 World Long Drive Championship in Mesquite, Nev. Several months later, Lincicome flew to South Africa for a visit.

By April, Gouws had quit his job because his boss wouldn’t give him the two weeks he needed to visit Lincicome in the U.S.

“I had to see her,” he said.

One week into his trip, the boss called begging him to come back.

Lincicome made three more treks to South Africa to visit Gouws last year, meaning they routinely went 60-90 days without seeing each other.

“South Africa is so far from anywhere in the world,” she said. “I would try to back it up to the British or Evian or Australia and it’s still like 10 to 12 hours from all those places.”

2013 was a tiring year for an already globe-trotting Lincicome, but from the look on her face, totally worth it. In late December, Gouws moved to Florida.

“We did what everyone else thinks you can’t do,” said Gouws of the extra-long-distance relationship that relied heavily upon modern conveniences like WhatsApp and Skype.

Now that they’re living on the same continent, Lincicome has been able to introduce her man to the rush of deep-sea fishing. In May, Gouws fought a 6-foot shark for 35 minutes in the Gulf of Mexico.

Prior to meeting Lincicome, he’d only gone fishing twice.

Time on the range is more fun now with Gouws around. He’s constantly working on new trick shots for his routine at charity outings. Lincicome is particularly fond of hitting it through watermelons. They’ve even bashed drives through plywood, though her piece is obviously not as thick.

“Even taking a ball and bouncing it and then hitting it with your driver,” said Lincicome, “those always look so easy until you try it.”

For long drive competitions, Gouws uses a driver that’s 2 inches longer than standard with a triple-x flex shaft and 3-degree loft. That’s the same amount of loft as your average putter.

Gouws’ best advice to Lincicome, who hasn’t had a formal lesson in years, is to focus on her tempo.

“Swing it at 80 percent,” he said. “If you try to go any harder than that you hit it shorter.”

While both dig the long ball, only one is interested in working out. Gouws hits the gym when Lincicome, famous for her naps, hits the hay.

Gouws said it never crossed his mind that they couldn’t make this globe-trotting romance work.

Nobody handed Cheyenne Woods an LPGA card. She earned it the old-fashioned way, playing on developmental tours to earn her stripes and then grinding over a 3-footer for par on her 90th hole of LPGA Q-School to realize a lifelong dream.

Cheyenne Woods showed the kind of resolve it takes to survive LPGA Q-School; One day after posting a head-scratching 79, Woods came to the more forgiving Jones Course at LPGA International and notched seven birdies.

Cheyenne Woods bounces back at LPGA Q-School

Cheyenne Woods bounced back in the third round of LPGA Q-School's final stage with a 67.
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Mark Sims / LPGA Tour
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Stacy Lewis swept LPGA postseason honors, winning Rolex Player of the Year, the Vare Trophy and the money title, but she had to share the spotlight with Lydia Ko, who won the CME Group Tour Championship and the CME Race to the Globe bonus check Sunday in Naples, Fla.

Julieta Granada won the first $1 million payout in LPGA history as a rookie in 2006 at the ADT Championship. Funny how Granada has found her way back to the top now that a $1 million prize has returned to the tour.

Granada leads LPGA finale, drama heightens

Julieta Granada, who hasn't won on the LPGA tour since 2006, leads the CME Group Tour Championship by a single shot entering the final round.
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Associated Press
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It didn’t take long for Stacy Lewis to start crunching numbers. Moments after she wrapped her post-round interview, Lewis headed to the back of the room to look at a closer breakdown of Race to the Globe scenarios.

For Lewis, LPGA finale all about scenarios

After finishing the third round of the CME Group Tour Championship, Stacy Lewis spent time considering the scenarios that could play out in the final round.
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Associated Press
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No one can cause a stir on the red carpet like Michelle Wie. And when she follows an evening of glamor with a smooth 67 to vault up the leaderboard at the CME Group Tour Championship, well, it’s doubly fantastic for the LPGA.

Red-carpet star Wie climbs leaderboard in Naples

Michelle Wie during the Rolex Awards Banquet in Naples. Through 36 holes of the CME Group Tour Championship, Wie is two shots off the lead.
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Photo Courtesy of LPGA/Gabriel Roux
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